A journey down the rabbit hole of Rubik's-style puzzles

I’m a big fan of Dayan cubes, and, for 3×3, use them exclusively. For a while, I thought the Zhanchi (Dayan 5) was the bee’s knees — in all incarnations (white, black, stickerless, 42mm, 50mm, 55mm, or 57mm). Recently, I’ve revisited my Guhong v2 — Zhanchi’s older brother, which has a somewhat blockier/thicker/clickier feeling. Cubing forums are riddled with hyperbolic, vitriolic debate on which is better. Personal preference, I’d say. Both are damn good.

There’s long been talk about a Dayan 6 model that would combine the best traits of the Guhong and Zhanchi (and even their older brothers, DaYan’s Lingyun and Lunhui). Based on this speedsolving.com thread, which gathers pics and quotes that DaYan’s designer (Daqing Bao) posted to the MF8 forum, the rumors now appear true. In fact, pre-orders are now being accepted at 51morefun.com.

Pics, Videos

Here are some pics that circulated a few days ago as part of the original threads:

And here is a video slideshow put together by CrazyBadCuber, with a whole bunch more pics from 51morefun.com:

Dan says that he’s not sure the Zhanchi can be improved. I think there’s always room for improvement and could see the best features of several other Dayan cubes being mashed together into the Panshi.

UPDATE: And here is a video just posted to 51morefun’s Youtube channel:

The performance seems very similar to a Zhanchi’s. It’s hard to tell from the short video whether it is better, but it certainly does not seem worse.

Background, Description

Since the production of Dayan 3×3 cube, Dayan cubes get the support and love from cubers. And I say thanks to every cubers. The name PanShi of the Dayan6 gets from a old China saying,it means steady smooth and strong.

Since 2012 years, there are many manufacturers who pirate Dayan 3×3 cubes. Because of the interruption of these cheap copy cubes, sometimes I feel sad and have no power to design new cube. Fortunately, I finally figured it out. I should let my lawyer to do this work. I am a designer, I’m interesting with cubes, and my job is design new cubes.

I am very satisfied with my Dayan5-Zhanchi design. But cubers really expecting me to continue design new Dayan cubes, so I have to design new cubes.

The length of a side of Dayan 6 cube is 57mm, and the design keeping the style of Dayan, the concept of small inner circle. To keep the small inner circle, Dayan6 will replace the old 18mm axis to 14mm.

Now the Dayan6-Panshi had passed the test. Anti-pop and Fault tolerance have acheive my required. But if it is better than Zhanchi depends on evaluation of cubers.

BTW: Dayan 6 will mass production after 15days of the Chinese New Year(so the mass production date will be 24 February 2013)
Thanks for your attention,guys XD

In terms of the design, the pics suggest a hybrid of a Zhanchi and Lunhui. This particular description from speedsolving.com seems spot on:

It seems like they took the ZhanChi’s edge and corner design and modified it by adding tracks, providing a construction that seems inspired by the LunHui’s two-tiered design. The rest of the dips and bulges are simply made to accommodate the added tracks. The tracks appear to be just thick enough to strengthen the cube’s anti-popping design without significantly decreasing its performance. These tracks may help guide the pieces more easily, allowing smooth and improved corner cutting. Torpedoes, as expected, are returning. However, one possible con of these tracks is that the cube could lock up like how the LunHui was known to, but it probably won’t be as much of a problem, as it appears they did not go too far in the two-tiered design.

Amplifying on Bao’s explanation of the name “Panshi,” 51morefun.com explains:

Panshi(磐石) , which from the chinese idiom “安如磐石”. Means something steady or firm as a great rock. Here means the cube has super stability when fast solving.

Piracy and Development

As an entertaining aside, another post from Bao reveals the soft underbelly of manufacturing in China: piracy. It seems that the Zhanchi knock-offs chilled DaYan’s and Bao’s enthusiasm for continuing to develop products. In the end, his enthusiasm for product development and speedcubing seems to have trumped his piracy concerns, but not without issuing a legal threat against pirates. Here is a very cleaned up version of the Google translation, courtesy of this speedsolving.com post and a little further polishing on my end:

There are currently 5 types of Dayan 3x3s: Taiyan, Guhong, Lingyun, Lunhui, Zhanchi. Between them, the Guhong and Zhanchi have both set the world record in the hand of a god by the name of Feliks. Lingyun has also set the Chinese record by LiKaiLong. Dayan 3x3s are used a lot in competitions, and they are also very well known through out the cubing community. As they have become more and more recognised, some unscrupulous manufacturers have pirated the Dayan 3x3s. I of course foresaw this coming, as China is well known for pirating, and these unscrupulous manufacturers will pirate anything if there is profit. They will even pirate their own mother, wife etc. I’m sure that their son, grandson etc. are all pirated by someone else. Why? They have no skill themselves.

But that was all just me waffling, let me make an announcement here:

1. Dayan 3x3s has their own patent. Up until now there is 5 dayan 3x3s. Dayan 1 had its own patent, but it’s not an brilliant cube, so I’m not planning to keep paying for the patent. Guhong, Lingyun, Lunhui, Zhanchi all have their own patents. As part of the patent there are two technical details: (1) a super small inner circle, and (2) the shape (chamfering) of the corner and edge pieces. Up until now, I am still paying for these patents, so they are still legally effective.

2. Dayan has never given permission for any other manufacture to produce or sell these cubes. Dayan 3×3 is aimed at speedcubing, therefore only “professional” speedcubers, and Dayan 3x3s are still very welcomed in the community. I am also a speedcuber. I only take care of designing Dayan 3x3s; selling is taken care of by my partner. So I’m not very concerned with whether it goes into the market, but I will definitely not give permission for any other manufacture to sell them.

To these pirating manufacturers, here is a warning: Although it is hard to enforce my patent fully in China, I will do what I must. As of now, I’m just getting evidence gradually; when the time comes, I will let the law decide.

Lastly I thank each and every one of you for your attention and support! Thank you!

I have to admit that the original Google translation of the above was pretty awesome. What is “Feliks” in the clean translation above was “God of the Philippines, Australia” in the original translation; “Zhanchi” was “Youth Pre-employment Training”; “Taiyan” was “state of inflammation”; and “Dayan 3x3s are used a lot in competitions, and they are also very well known through out the cubing community” was “the advent of third-order screwed with, is for Cube athletics speed face are just some of the professional players, so the geese third order in the circle is still very popular, and I think that itself is a Rubik’s Cube players.”